This is about my life in a fostering family of several young people in Wales today.
There are also all the other people in this house, my own growing up too quickly children who seem to be here less every week, and of course the student, the mistress of all we owe money on. There are three green goddesses (big green 1950's fire pumps): Gloria, Isabelle and the belle.
That's not mentioning other vehicles and items of plant, all sorts in fact.

Sunday, 16 November 2014

Fostering can be a long slog sometimes. Quite often you work away at something for years then nothing happens. Sometimes the result of lots of work is seen a long time after you did it thinking nothing was going on.

Then something very special happens. Today our latest fosling, having turned 16 went off her own back, to help out in a local pub that does some ferociously good cooking. By the sounds of it she had a great time and the punters and owners were very impressed with her.

Contrast that with some of our other fosling who are very strong believers in work. They believe everyone should work and work hard, otherwise where would the money for their dole come from??

G is a little bit of s success story, so far, 18 months ago she arrived with an expectation she might last a few weeks. Her ambition was to have a tent in the grounds of a homeless hostel, she is now thinking about university.

Things like this can collapse overnight, now she is 16, she is under loads of pressure to jump on a train and go back to Daycastle. We are not supposed to know this of course, but she has been exploring the issues in an indirect way.

Do we think she would be strong enough to cope back there, and not get drawn into the family dramas. This is where you have to be properly skilled, it would be dead easy to say "no", very appealing even. But then you are giving your answer. The truth is, they need to work this one out for themselves. We're not the expert on them: they are.

That too is proper empowerment, not steaming in and making the call, letting them decide.

My gut feeling, especially after a esteem building day like today is that she might stay.

About Me

This drivel is all copyright to me, an Ageing biker hippy living in west wales
I would of course be delighted if someone wanted to publish what they read one here but you have to ask first. Otherwise I might get angry and you would not like me when I am angry.